Do characters know what spell levels and HP are?

[Dagger of Lath]

I like the idea of clerics and paladins "knowing" what healing spell to cast or how much laying of hands to give. It seems more miraculous if somehow the spell they cast is just right to cure the wounded.

Then again I also like the idea of good clerics and paladins who heal anyone they touch whether they want to or not. Injuries just sucking the spells out of the holy ones, really enforces the idea of ritualistic purity, or paladins taking off gauntlets to heal the sick.

(contemplates using that idea next game)

 

[Felix]

Same way a doctor knows when a bone is fractured and when it's fissured. They've seen enough of wounds to know "this wound would´ve killed a lesser man. But Conan is no lesser man". A Ftr1 with 5hp is wounded, but not much. A Ftr10 with 5hp has lots of cuts and bruises and gashes, with blood all over, but is capable of soldiering on. Both of them would fall from a blow of the same severity, but it's clear the Ftr10 took a much more serious beating to get to that point. You might even say he's in Critical condition!

Ok, you prefer them to just know. Fair enough. I'd rather there be some way for them to find out, and for me, that requires some in-character knowledge of what HPs represent.

Oh, and wouldn't a Doc use a Heal check to figure out if a bone is broken or not?

 

[Slife]

I like the idea of clerics and paladins "knowing" what healing spell to cast or how much laying of hands to give. It seems more miraculous if somehow the spell they cast is just right to cure the wounded.

Then again I also like the idea of good clerics and paladins who heal anyone they touch whether they want to or not. Injuries just sucking the spells out of the holy ones, really enforces the idea of ritualistic purity, or paladins taking off gauntlets to heal the sick.

(contemplates using that idea next game)

So any enemies that grapple the cleric get free healing?

 

[Dagger of Lath]

So any enemies that grapple the cleric get free healing?

Yep. The cleric can probably wear gloves or such to prevent an effect like this, but the enemy could pull the cleric's gloves off. May not work on all monster type creatures but I think this would add an interesting element to the cleric. (Doing such an act deliberately may involve lowering your saving throw against any spells the cleric also chooses to cast on you).

Then again maybe part of me just finds the image of a beatific cleric in full regalia being rugby tackled to the ground for his magic healing goo to be too amusing to turn down.

This system would balance itself if cases of "accidental" healing didn't constitute an action on the character's behalf. They could still cast spells and all.

 

[Piratecat]

An in-character line from the game:

"How hurt are you?"

"Pretty badly. On a random scale of, say, 1 to 74, I'd say I'm about a 31."

 

[Squire James]

I believe spell levels are part of the jargon of various spellcasting classes (the jargon being different in different regions/classes). While characters do not necessarily know what Hit Points are, in my opinion most adventurers learn how to measure their health fairly quickly. Characters with high HP have a high "specific heat" - that is, it takes a lot more energy to either hurt or heal them. Characters with healing spells have a good idea what their friends' "specific heats" are, and have less knowledge of people they don't know so well.

So a cleric that is healing a dying man he just met will only know that a Cure Minor is enough to stablize him, and anything else is just a guess. This can create some interesting situations if the man is the BBEG (or powerful ally) in disguise, because he has to remember to make his apparent state of health part of the disguise (the cleric will be awfully suspicious if the guy soaks up a Heal and still looks seriously wounded)!

 

[Nightfall]

On a Scale of 100 to 1, I'd say I below 1.

 

[covaithe]

Thinking out loud: What if clerics were given the divine gift of being able to perceive the body as a construct of positive energy, and damage to the body as pockets of negative energy. They would be able to remove the damage by using positive energy to drive out or disrupt the negative energy. The positive energy comes, of course, from prepared blessings/spells, and higher level spells contain more positive energy (or deliver it more efficiently). This would explain why some clerics can sacrifice other prepared spells for healing spells; they are the ones whose prepared spells consist of controlled positive energy. Serious wounds produce denser, more concentrated pockets of negative energy than minor wounds. Experienced, tough fighters are ones who have trained their bodies to be healthy and resilient, i.e. have a higher concentration of positive energy, and are more resistent to the negative energy produced by wounds. Under normal circumstances, the negative energy built up in wounds dissipates in death, leaving just an empty shell. If through magical means the negative energy is not allowed to dissipate... undeath!

It could work, I think. For verisimilitude, one might house-rule that spells like negative energy ray could not be transmuted into healing energy.

 

[Gold Roger]

Thinking out loud: What if clerics were given the divine gift of being able to perceive the body as a construct of positive energy, and damage to the body as pockets of negative energy. They would be able to remove the damage by using positive energy to drive out or disrupt the negative energy. The positive energy comes, of course, from prepared blessings/spells, and higher level spells contain more positive energy (or deliver it more efficiently). This would explain why some clerics can sacrifice other prepared spells for healing spells; they are the ones whose prepared spells consist of controlled positive energy. Serious wounds produce denser, more concentrated pockets of negative energy than minor wounds. Experienced, tough fighters are ones who have trained their bodies to be healthy and resilient, i.e. have a higher concentration of positive energy, and are more resistent to the negative energy produced by wounds. Under normal circumstances, the negative energy built up in wounds dissipates in death, leaving just an empty shell. If through magical means the negative energy is not allowed to dissipate... undeath!

It could work, I think. For verisimilitude, one might house-rule that spells like negative energy ray could not be transmuted into healing energy.

Hey, welcome to the boards!

That's quite a good a idea. Consider it yoinked.

 

[Nightfall]

Gold,

Quit yoinking the newbies!